Foreign Secretary David Lammy has refused to condemn Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Mr Lammy told Wilfred Frost on Sky News he is “not in the business of condemning our closest ally” when asked if he would denounce the US president-elect’s rhetoric.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump said he could “not assure” the world he would not resort to military action or economic coercion to try to get control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
He has said he wants the US to buy the vast island off Canada’s east coast that is home to a large US military base “for purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world”.
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The president also said the Panama Canal was built for the US military, was “vital” to the US and China was “operating it” – and criticised the late Jimmy Carter for signing it over to Panama in 1977.
France and Germany have expressed concern over Mr Trump’s comments, but Mr Lammy laughed off the suggestion he is worried.
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“It’s classic Donald Trump,” he told Sky News.
“Look, I think that what sits behind Donald Trump is, he’s just won an election. 77 million people voted for him. Up in nearly all classifications, including, by the way, African Americans and Latinos.
“He came in very clearly saying he was going to work for working people. And, he sees America’s national economic security as centring that.
“That is why he’s raising issues, in relation to the Panama Canal, and I suspect to Greenland.
“He always amplifies that and does it at its most, at its strongest intensity. But sitting behind that are actually quite serious national security and economic issues.”
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Mr Lammy said Mr Trump’s failure to assure he would not use military force was an “amplification of the intensity of the rhetoric”.
He added: “Let’s be clear. No NATO countries have gone to war since the establishment of NATO. And I don’t envisage that.”
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Germany and France have warned Mr Trump against threatening Greenland but Mr Lammy said he would not be doing the same.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said “the principle of the inviolability of borders applies to every country… no matter whether it’s a very small one or a very powerful one”.
While French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said “there is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders”.
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Mr Lammy said Germany was most likely taking a strong stance because they are fighting an election.
But he said he thinks the issue of national security and China’s influence on the Panama Canal “are legitimate issues” that have also been raised in the UK.
On Greenland, he added: “In the end, that is up to the people of Greenland, and their own self-determination.”
Greenland, a founding member of NATO, is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark with a unique geopolitical advantage of straddling the Arctic Circle between the US, Russia and Europe.
America has eyed that advantage for more than 150 years, and as global warming melts its ice it is opening up the Arctic to shipping and trade.
